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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

On Life Well Lived

So many things remind me of writing (I’m sure you understand),
so when I heard this talk from President Dieter F. Uchtdorf a few weeks ago, I
knew I had to blog about it:) The talk was religious in nature, but I thought
so many of his ideas were applicable across a broad range of life experiences. Here
are a few of my favorites:

“I think of our Lord and Exemplar, Jesus Christ, and His short
life among the people of Galilee and Jerusalem.
I have tried to imagine Him bustling between meetings or multitasking to get a
list of urgent things accomplished.“I can’t see it.“Instead I see the compassionate and caring Son of God
purposefully living each day. When He interacted with those around him, they
felt important and loved. He knew the infinite value of the people He met. He
blessed them, ministered to them. He lifted them up, healed them. He gave them
the precious gift of His time.”

He then went on to caution us about overusing technology,
which is one of those perpetual balancing acts in my life. With so many good things
to do with our time, we have to make sure we’re doing what’s best. When
everything’s said and done, I want to be able to say I “purposefully [lived]
each day.”

“Doesn’t it seem foolish to spoil sweet and joyful
experiences because we are constantly anticipating the moment when they will
end? …“We shouldn’t wait to be happy until we reach some future
point, only to discover that happiness was already available--all the time! Life
is not meant to be appreciated only in retrospect.”

I’ve thought about this a lot lately, about choosing to be
happy no matter what, and something I’ve learned is that we can choose to be
happy even when our experiences are less than sweet and joyful. For most of us, querying
and submitting amount to long months of waiting (seasoned occasionally with
heart-stopping spurts of rejection), but we don’t have to let the waiting or
even the rejection define us. Those months can be just as happy so long as we
fill them with the things that matter most.

Feel free to check out the whole transcript if you feel so
inclined. Or you can watch the talk in its entirety below. In another life,
President Uchtdorf was the senior vice president of flight operations at Lufthansa
Airlines, and I’ve always thought he looked very captain-like. I would have
felt very confident after climbing onto a plane and shaking his hand:)